AVENGERS #55 (Marvel, $2.25)
The Avengers is one of my favorite team books and this issue wraps
up the long running Kang story line. During this story, we saw
Washington, DC, destroyed, discovered the purpose of the religious
group the Triune Understanding, and finally finished redeeming Warbird
(once known as Ms. Marvel). Wheshhhew. That's a lot of stuff to cover,
and the scope of this story has been very large, which is what you
would expect in the era of Authority and Morrision's [sic]JLA.

Patrick Zircher was stuck with the
unenviable position of following George Perez on this title and he has
filled in those shoes quite well. Kurt Busiek's writing is very strong
as he brings in a sense of closure to the characters he has focused on
during his run: Triathlon, Warbird, Justice, Firestar, and Vision. In
fact, some people state that Busiek has brought the team back to
heights it hasn't seen since Jim Shooter wrote it. The fact that Busiek
was able to take second rate characters, both heroes and villains, and
make them first rate, is impressive. At the same time, he was able to
take the classic Avengers villains, like Ultron and Kang, and
make them more deadly then they had even been. This book does suffer in
the sense that it's not too accommodating to new readers, but there is
a new writer coming on board in two months. I hope he has something
strong up his sleeve because he has a hard act to follow. (8 out of 10)